The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1887-07-08
MISLEADlNG STATISTICS.
satisfactory Condition of the Mental and
Moral Health of Farmers

The poets have always taught us to
believe that nothing is more health
giving Tran '.the scent of new-turned
mold; but now comes along the dry
as-dust statistician and intimates that
this Is all mistake, and that the es-
sential unhealthfulness of the farmer S
occupation is indicated by the fact that
those who till the soil (including in this
class farmers wives and daughtersl
furnish the insane asylums of the land
with the greater part of their patients.
Add to this the idea (Which, however,
has obtained less currency that farm
ers are more apt than other people to
be violators of law, and we have two
indictments against rural life so serl-
Gus in their import as to call for care
full examination.
Statistics gathered from various
parts of the Union establish beyond
doubt the fact that almost everywhere
the number of farmers in State insan e
asylums is exceeded only by the num-
Der of ''day-laborers' IA class which
doubtless includes many who labor
upon farms. In private asylums. the
patronage of which is for the most
part derived from the weather. classes,
few farmers are to be found If, how
ever, all those who are engaged in me-
chanical pursuits of various kinds were
to be brought together in one class,
they would be found to furnish about
as many, perhaps quite as many, pa
tients to the asylum for the insane as
do the tillers of the soil.
When we speak of farmers, we must
not lose sight of their wives and daugh-
tiers, who share with them, even more
fully than in proportion to their
strength, the most exhausting labors.
The records of hospitals for the insane
show that the women of the farmer
family are almost as liable to the loss
of reason as the farmer himself
But while the hospital reports taken
by themselves seem to present so
gloomy picture of the mental health
of those devoted to the pursuit of agri-
culture, this unfavorable impression
altogether disappears when we come
to observe that the ratio of the agri-
cultural class to all those of other oc-
equations taken together is much
greater than the ratio of insane farm
ers to the whole number of the insane.
In other words, farmers constitute a
considerably larger proportion of the
community at large than they do of
that class of unfortunates whose men,
tai vision has been darkened Ones
chances of becoming insane are not,
therefore, increased by his making
agriculture the business of his life.
For the belief that farmers furnish
more than their due proportion to the
criminal classes, there is even less
foundation. The farmer class of Penn
sylvania contains about twenty per
cent. of all those having occupations;
therefore, if farmers are as 1aw-abiding
as other people, and neither more nor
less so, they may be expected to fur
nish about twenty per cent. of the
criminals consigned to penal institu-
tions. Limiting our inquiries to six
of the last ten years we gather from
official sources the following facts: the
farmers sentenced to the penitentia-
ries of the State were in 1877 little
over two and one-half per cent. of the
whole number thus sentenced; in 1879
six per cent; in 1881 little over one
per cent; in 1882 less than onc-half of
one per cent. in 1884 not one individ-
ual out of 1888; in 1885 one individual
out of 840-about one-tenth of one per
cent. Thus it appears that in Pennsyl-
yania, at least, farmers are seldom
guilty of great crimes.
It is also of interest to note that the
number of farmer convicts is growing
steadily less. That this is partly duo
to our increasing distance from that
period of moral corruption-the long
years of the warts not unlikely. An
additional item of evidence pointing in
this direction is the fact that of those
consigned to the Michigan State Prison
in 1874, somewhat nearer the close of
the war, little more than thirteen per
cent. were farmers. Yet even thus the
farmers of Michigan, being forty-two
per cent. of the workers of the State,
were convicted of only third as many
State-prison offenses as they might
have been guilty of without being
worse than other beople.
In conclusion we may cite the per-
sonal testimony of one of the leading
criminal lawyers of Western Fennsyl-
vania, who gives us most emphatic as
surance, based upon his own wide ex-
perience, that great crimes are very
rare among the agricultural classes
Ct0ataatQetGn.